In Plain View

“Are there no circumstances under which you would consider keeping something out of the public eye, Ms. O’Hara?”

“There are no circumstances under which I wouldn’t be damn suspicious of any such request, Dr. Graham.”

“Really? How would you feel about your son or daughter watching your program?”

“I don’t have a son or daughter.” The words flew out of my mouth.

Ainsley’s head turned. I ignored him.

“Exactly.” The word resonated in her lovely voice as a sort of challenge. She looked down at her watch and said, “I’m sorry. I have another appointment coming in a few minutes. You’ll have to excuse me.”

Ainsley interrupted with some polite noises and smoothed the moment over. Interview over-and I was three for three. Strikeout.

We wound our way out of the place as fast as I could follow the signs.

“You okay?” Ainsley said.

“Fine,” I lied. My face felt hot. The curse of fair skin is transparent emotions. The doctor’s words had shaken something that my sister’s death hadn’t even managed. I’d spent my whole life alerting adults to the trouble ahead-behind, everywhere.

I’d never doubted that work.

“Now what?”

I put my sunglasses on before we stepped outside. “We make some more calls. See if someone else is willing to do an on-camera.”

Ainsley looked confused. “But the doctor said it could be dangerous.”

“There’s always somebody who doesn’t want you to tell the story, College.” The artificial cold of the hospital lingered in my voice. “Always. Sometimes they sound so reasonable.”

The doors swept open and we walked out, shoulder to shoulder. Cold, hospital-scented air-conditioning evaporated into the dusty afternoon heat. I sucked in a lung full and tried to warm myself inside.

The boy didn’t give up. “But…what if she’s right?”

4:35:29 p.m.

By the time we returned to the station, I’ll admit, I was looking for an excuse to drop on somebody. Two days on the job and I had barely ninety seconds of air time covered. No photos, no sources, no cooperation from anyone-except my Boy Wonder.

I sent Ainsley to get us an engineering booth so we could load my stills in the computer and went to find out about my new office.

Barbara, Gatt’s opposable thumb, greeted me with the carefully neutral face of someone who knows a lot more than she’s telling you. I stood still for another once-over and she showed general approval of the absence of leather. When I asked about my office, she blinked her Raggedy Ann eyelashes, frowned and unwrapped herself from her phone headset.

“Follow me.”

Swear-we walked three and a half, four minutes, tramping all through the building until we finally arrived somewhere deep in the old tape library. She pointed her finger that away. Crammed in a niche between two eight-foot tall stacks, at the farthest end of a corridor, was the ugliest work cube in the Midwest flatland. No chair. No computer. Oh, and no phone.

“Mr. Gatt said you needed something private. They’ll install the phone next Monday or Tuesday,” she assured me, all practicality. “PC should come in the week after.”

“Great. Sure they will. You want to lead me back to Gatt’s office, or was I supposed to drop a trail of bread crumbs?”

She looked at the ground, got the smirk under control and executed a sharp turn. “Right this way.”

I banged Gatt’s door wide while knocking, and called out over his voice, “I got a problem here.”

The door rebounded shut behind me.

“I’ll call you back.” Gatt slammed the receiver down. It didn’t ring again, although the lights started twinkling frantically; Barbara must be holding the line, so to speak. “What the hell’re you thinking? You don’t knock?”

“I knocked. What the hell are you thinking? I told you, I need an office.”

He did a quick paper shuffle. “I told them to set you up.”

“Yeah, they set me up, all right. Whichever wise-guy had the idea to make me Bob Cratchit in the tape dungeon gets a big hee-haw, Gatt. I need a desk and a phone and a door I can fucking close.”

“Oh, Christ, not again,” Gatt whined. “I’ll try and talk to operations.”

Both palms flat on his desk, I leaned in toward him. I could feel the grit of spilled sugar under my hands. “You do that.”

“You get me anything to look at today?” he asked.

“No.”

“You want to be a pain in the ass, O’Hara, you’d sure as hell better come across with something I can sell.”

“No pain. No gain.” I stood up and brushed my hands clean. “I’ll get you a story. You get me an office.”

Climbing your way up television’s mythical ladder of success to the point you are-ta da! -someone is a hell of a lot of work. The effort it takes to hold your ground, continue being Someone, is worse. I wanted an office to get my job done, but I needed the office to rate some respect.

Flashbacks of Schmed’s killer handshake and the good doctor’s voice and Sheriff Curzon’s death-ray eyes all spliced into one lousy day, and the paranoia started kicking in. Was everyone in this suburban backwood salivating at the thought of my crash and burn?

Barbara was doing some life-or-death typing as I passed her desk. I noticed the extra-large jug of ibuprofen sitting beside her elbow.

“You mind?” I asked, reaching for the bottle.

“Help yourself.” She opened another drawer and passed me a packet of soup crackers. “I like four on a saltine this time of day.”

“Tasty. Thanks.”

She raised her hand to wave away my gratitude.

So. Not everyone was rooting against me.

All right then. Back to work.

The minute College and I finished logging photos, my cell phone rang. Jenny’s teacher, a Mrs. Horner, was calling to ask if I would stop by her classroom. “I’ll be here at school until six tonight. I’m very concerned, Ms. O’Hara. Please make sure to stop in and see me this evening.”

Of course, I told her.

Ainsley must have seen me blanch because he chucked me on the arm and said, “It can’t be that bad. It’s Friday, remember?”

“And what exactly does that fact mean to you, College?”

“Beer.” He shrugged. “All night videos. All day nap.”

The blue glow of the monitors in the darkened room made it harder to read facial expressions. I leaned back in my chair to make sure he didn’t miss mine. “We have ninety seconds of usable material, to fill six minutes of national air time, on a story I don’t even know is gonna work.”

“No problem. It’s not due ’til Wednesday-that gives us both Monday and Tuesday to work on it.”

“And Saturday. And Sunday.”

“Oh.”

“That’s right, College. Beer and video all night if you want, but I want you in the truck, in my driveway by-” he looked so horrified, I decided not to ruin both our days completely, “-noon tomorrow. We’ll start by picking up Melton’s research on our mysterious Amish fireman.”

5:46:60 p.m.

School was the one place I didn’t have to worry about Jenny. Or so I thought.